Food Network

More of a fan of the Food Network of days gone by. I loved the old Iron Chef, the first U.S. Iron Chef with William Shatner, and the Iron Chef U.S. 2.0 with the original team.

The cake competitions were fun, especially when Bronwen from Austin was on.

Also a fan of Anthony Bourdain, the foodie equivalent to a louche, mellow HST.

Good Eats is fun from a geek perspective. I used to see Deb Duchon at conferences. She was the perfect person to be the nutritional anthropologist in Brown's little TV universe. Dr. Duchon probably forgot more about ethnobotany and foodways than most of my professors know/knew. She was a sweetheart who understood how very much like Hogwarts our discipline was.

I got put off by all the lifestyle/competition shows. Every now and then I'll find an old episode of something I like and watch it. Same goes for HGTV. I miss Carol Duvall's slow take at some ridiculous craft and the implied thought bubble of "What fresh hell is this?"

Dearly departed from cable (Whuzzat?) and sorely missed: FitTV and Planet Green.

 

Fieri’s restaurant in NYC — not sure if he had more than one there and if it’s still open — was on the verge of mediocrity and horribly overpriced.

Many years ago, I spent several hours with Bobby Flay, doing an interview. Was really a nice guy. My photographer and I dined at one of his restaurants twice and both times it was knock-your-socks-off good.

 

The best episodes were dubbed in Houston. The same actors did a lot of the initial DiC releases in the US. That might explain why some of the panel and reporters sometimes referred to "maters," taters," and "nanners." Note: The actor who dubbed Dr. Hatori is Canadian. I figure he was taking the piss at his southern fried colleagues. Another pig trot: Disney did anime a disservice when they didn't use Scott Morris (the aforementioned Canajan) and Bill Bickard when they started releasing SG's catalog over here.

 

Wait ... that's what you do!?! How did I not know that?

 

Katie Lee, worth watching.

 

Good Eats is about one of the only shows on Food Network or Cooking TV I'll watch anymore. Used to watch Food Network all the time, including Alton's other cooking competition. Chopped was great and a few others. But for one reason or another, I've moved on. Maybe it's the constant everything must be barbecued or something else. Don't know.

 

I too watch Good Eats and little else on Food Network or Cooking TV these days. I have Alton Brown's Good Eats cookbooks - - three volumes - - and have used several of the recipes there with great success.

Back in the very early days of Food Network, Mario Batali had two shows one of which was called Molto Mario. I copied down a couple of those recipes for dishes and tried them. They were outstanding.

 

I liked Katie Joel as the host of Top Chef.

I forgot about Molto Mario. Loved that show, too.

Sort of kind of. My official degree is anth with a side of folk studies. Ask @Jerry_atric about my completely unmarketable degree. (And yes, I have majored in everything, spent my twenties alternately working and going to school. Seeing all of those classes was like sending a Bob Geldolf spokes-orphan to a Sizzler. I wanted to take everything!) It's an avocational thing now. I volunteer to help with studies and used to help with digs for people trying to get their paper. It's the major for generally interested people.

A shortlist of people who majored or minored in anth but are not anthropologists by trade:
Yo-Yo Ma
Prince Charles
Rick Bayless
George Lucas
Kurt Vonnegut
Giada DeLaurentiis

 

I learned how to deconstruct a bell pepper thanks to Molto Mario. For a while, everything I cooked had an Italian flair to it. There's a few other things I still use, including chopping an onion that have made me seem like a better cook than I really am.

 

I like Good Eats with Alton Brown from an "interesting" standpoint, but he is way too precise measuring and weighing stuff for me to try to do at home.

 

Along these lines ... not Food Network but Travel Channel (if I remember right) ....
Back when Adam Richman did Man vs. Food, he did a show pretty close to me. I saw where he was going to be and thought, "How cool! He'll be at here, and here, and here, etc."
Nope, he totally skipped the places I named off and went to all these "local favorites."
I watched thinking, "Where the heck is that? I've never heard of it."